When his post-campaign organization was unveiled in January, Barack Obama vowed that the 13 million-strong grass-roots network built during his presidential campaign would play a “crucial role” in enacting his agenda from the White House.

But in its first big test, the group dubbed Organizing for America (OFA) had little obvious impact on the debate over President Obama’s budget, which passed Congress on Thursday with no Republican support and a splintering of votes among conservative Democrats. The capstone of the campaign was the delivery of 214,000 signatures to Capitol Hill, which swayed few, if any, members of Congress, according to legislative aides from both parties.

There’s a problem here, though. It’s not the first big test; it’s the second. The first big test was the attempt to use house parties to generate interest in Obama’s misnamed ‘stimulus’ bill. It, of course, failed miserably, as most of the citizens of the United States apparently have better things to do with their time than to go sit in a room and tell each other how great it is that Democrats are now able to fund any silly notion that comes into their heads. Which the White House should have worked out on its own, except that then it wouldn’t have been able to properly appreciate these marvelous stories about how the Return of the Unicorn Would Redeem the Land.

So they tried again with the budget. End result: no support from the GOP, and no increased support from the populace. Again, not surprising. As the second link shows, the deficit levels that will be generated from this year’s budget will be downright alarming… and the citizenry understands the problems with living above your means; they’re getting a crash course in the consequences, which is one reason why personal saving rates have jumped back up recently. Which is why it’s so exasperating that the administration has gone into permanent campaign mode: it’s not even working, for added waste of time. Those people stuck with reliving Obama/Biden o8’s glory days could be using their time doing something more useful for society.